Abstract:

Organizational change readiness is the antecedent for implementing change. The scholars holding psychological view argue that its main purpose is to sharp the stakeholders’ mindset. However, the scholars holding structural view argue that it reflects the capacity of the organization in implementing the change and its ability to obtain the related resources. This paper reviews both the two views, especially the studies under the psychological perspective. However, the purpose of this paper is not limited to the review of literatures. Based on the present achievements in organizational change readiness research, this paper aims to explore a new theoretical framework about organizational change readiness. The paper reviews the development and measurements of the organizational change readiness, and analyzes the research trends under the panoramic view. It shows that: there are many scholars focusing on the individual-level. In contrast, there are few studies on group-level and organizational-level change readiness. Studies on the individual-level have confirmed the following findings: firstly, the individual tendency, group norms and organizational culture can predict individuals’ readiness for change; secondly, the individual change-supportive behaviors, working attitude and employee’s organizational commitment are all consequences of the organizational change readiness. There are few studies which have analyzed the consequences of collective readiness. Present studies on the collective-level have concluded that the sustain momentum of workshop, team climate, affective tone and emotional aperture can affect the collective readiness for change. Studies from the organization-level can be divided into two streams. The scholars holding psychological view emphasize the strength of the organization culture in readiness for change. One of these studies has confirmed that both the group culture and adhocracy culture have positive effect on individual readiness for change, while the other two kinds of culture, i.e. the market culture and hierarchy culture, have negative effect on individual readiness for change. The scholars holding structural view emphasize the resources and abilities of the organization in readiness for change, such as financial readiness, technological readiness, staff readiness, process and practice readiness, business readiness, etc. Integrating the results of the present organizational change readiness research, this paper has built a new theoretical framework of organizational change readiness. The new theoretical framework has not only merged the psychological and structural views of readiness for change, but also divided the organizational change readiness into three stages: the antecedents of readiness for change, the concepts and measurements of readiness for change and the consequences of readiness for change. The new theoretical framework in this paper has bridged the gap in this field: both the consequences in collective-level and the measurements in the three levels (individual-, collective- and organizational-) of organizational change readiness, need more studies in the future. In addition, the conceptualization, multi–level study and cross–cultural comparison should get more attention in the future studies. This paper makes notable contributions to Chinese organizational change research and offers implications for the companies to adapt to the current economic transformation in China.

摘要：

作为组织实施变革的前奏，组织变革准备包括：（1）组织本身处于变革就绪待发状态，和（2）组织成员在情感及认知上能够接受和容忍组织即将实施变革的程度。文章通过对组织变革准备相关概念、内容结构和测量、前因和后果的梳理，整合出一个新的分析框架。研究指出：未来在深化现有研究的同时，宜多采用跨层次的视角探讨相关构念在不同层面上的影响机制，结合具体变革情境开发有针对性的测量工具，弥补现有研究不足、指导企业实践。